The Channel
21
The villages round about make a lot of money through the fugitives.
They do nothing but bake enormous quantities of black bread and cart it to the relief points.
At a rouble and a half, at a rouble seventy, even at two roubles the pood.
Unheard-of prices!
And there are places through which pass 12,000 fugitives a day.
There is some fear that the villagers have given themselves up too much to bread making.
Will they have enough for themselves by and by?
Has the harvest been so good as to allow them to feed not only themselves but hundreds of thousands of others?
The towns, villages, and hamlets along the road are filled with terror.
—The fugitives will eat us all up!
—They're like locusts.
